Good evening, everyone.
Sorry to cut the festivities short.
I know we all love to visit around here.
We are going to start this evening's Bible study with a word of prayer, and then we'll get into the study.
So if would please bow with me.
Dear Lord, Almighty God, we come to thee prayer at this time wanting to thank you and observe the fact that you are almighty, you are all-knowing, you are all-present, and we
bow our heads before you now.
Lord God, can never thank You enough for the many blessings that You've bestowed upon us.
Every moment in life is chance to obey You, serve You, and love You.
And we only know that love because You first loved us enough to send Your Son to die on the cross for our sins.
Lord God, please continue to guide and direct us through Your Word so that we can obey You to the best of our abilities.
We want nothing more than to have a home in Heaven with You for all eternity.
And so we pray to the angels, Jesus' name, amen.
Alright, if you would please go ahead and grab your Bibles.
And tonight we are going to be studying from Matthew chapter 24.
Following the Bible class, the devotional at the proper time will be done by our brother Jordan Bohannon.
He'll be conducting the devotional tonight.
There he is.
I didn't even see him.
So tonight we have, I was kind of told to do this about three hours beforehand.
So I chose a chapter of the Bible that I felt is relevant today's time.
And we're going to go through that.
uh Have you ever heard anyone say that the signs of the times are happening now?
Maybe we've seen in movies how.
You have the long-bearded man with the cardboard sign saying, end is near, things like that.
A little cliche, I know.
But do you know that people are believing right now that we're living in the last days and the fact that Matthew chapter 24 is what proves it?
So tonight we're gonna go over Matthew chapter 24.
We're gonna talk about what it refers to in reference to the context, both historical, biblical, and who's talking.
So first off, let me ask, what comes to your mind when you hear the word rapture or tribulation?
What is it?
the Baptist Church.
He's not wrong.
Many denominations today interpret Matthew 24 as a blueprint for the end of the world, and that's why we're going to look at it.
They claim that it outlines events like the rapture, which we don't read about in the scripture, and a future great tribulation or a second coming of Christ.
They believe these events are yet to occur and that the chapter speaks of a final global judgment.
These ideas are largely rooted in a doctrine that we call premillennialism.
Now if you're students from the Memphis School of Preaching, at some point, if you haven't already, you'll go through a class called premillennialism, and it is a long but wonderful
class.
Premillennialism, who can tell me what the basic definition for that is?
Who's ever heard of premillennialism before?
It's a big word.
Okay, of course, all the students say yeah.
Premillennialism is the belief that Jesus will return to earth before, or pre, a literal 1,000-year reign or a millennium on David's throne in Jerusalem.
It's just talking about a physical earthly throne.
It teaches that the world will go through a seven-year great tribulation, after which Christ will return to set up again His physical kingdom.
However, these interpretations often ignore the historical context and the contextual clues within the chapter itself.
In this study tonight, we're going to carefully walk through the text.
We may or may not get through all the text this evening, but we're going to see what Jesus was really talking about.
Rather than a far-off apocalypse, we'll uncover how Jesus is warning his disciples of the upcoming fall of Jerusalem that we see happen in AD 70.
This was a fulfillment of prophecy and not a speculation about the end of the world.
By the end of this class, I'm hoping that going through Matthew chapter 24 will better equip you
to answer questions in regards to this whenever you're talking to someone in the future.
So first we're going to talk about the context and setting.
So first we're going to read Matthew chapter 24 and we're going to go to verses 1 through 3.
Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came up to show him the buildings of the temple.
And Jesus said to them, do you not see all these things?
Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.
Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, tell us when will these things be?
And what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?
m
Jesus just left the temple after a series of rebukes directed at the scribes and Pharisees.
We read about that just one chapter prior in Matthew chapter 23.
Now I'd like for someone else to read Matthew chapter 23 verses 36 through 39 where we can see him closing this.
If I can get a volunteer reader.
gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under
see your house is left to you desolate.
For I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes
Alright, so this closes with Jesus mourning over Jerusalem and declaring the house or the temple completely desolate.
Not one stone turned upon the other, completely dismantled.
And we know by historical context that the Romans picked every bit of gold under there.
They knew that the stones were inlaid all throughout with gold.
So, of course, they'd want to get at the ones on the underside of the bricks.
There would have been plenty of reason for them to do.
But in verse three of chapter 24, we see the disciples ask three specific questions.
in response to Jesus' prediction that the temple would be destroyed.
The first question we read is, when shall these things be?
When is this going to happen, they're asking Christ.
Number two, what will be the sign of thy coming?
And then question number three, end of the end of the world?
This is the Greek aenon, meaning age, not cosmos, meaning the end of the physical world.
The first question clearly refers to the temple's destruction, and Jesus addresses that in verses 4 through 35.
But what we see here is a warning to the disciples, not signs of the end of the world, as we'll read through verse 4 through 14.
So I'm going to go ahead and read chapter 24, verses 4 through 14.
Jesus answered and said unto them this is a response to their three questions Take heed that no one deceives you for many will come in my name saying that I am the Christ
and will deceive many.
And you will hear rumors of wars and rumors of wars.
See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
For a nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.
All these are the beginnings of sorrow.
Then they will deliver you up to a tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
And then many will be offended.
will betray one another and will hate one another.
Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations.
And then the end will come." Take a quick look at verse 4 specifically.
He says, starting off, take heed, be careful that no man deceive you.
Don't be deceived by the things that you see.
This is suggesting confusion.
This is suggesting that there's false teachings going around.
Not every church out there on the street that you see is teaching truth.
How can they be?
We teach one thing, they teach something in opposition.
Common sense and logic would tell you one has to be correct and one has to be wrong, doesn't it?
You can't have opposing views.
We to be careful, though, to not mistake this as talking about the final coming.
Jesus lists natural and political upheaval during the time they were in.
Verse 5, we read of false messiahs, for many will come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many.
What does the word anti mean?
against.
So if we say an anti-Christ, that would be against Christ, would it not?
Now he's saying that there are many false teachers that come in his name saying that I am the Christ.
Now if he is lying about being the Christ, is that against Christ?
Okay, so here we have an example of many anti-Christ-s-s-s-s, as your father likes to point out so many times.
It's not just one.
Verse 6 continues, and we see wars and rumors of wars.
This would have been in reference to the Jewish revolts, Roman civil wars, so on and so forth.
Then he talks about famines.
Acts 11 and verse 28 refers to a great famine under Claudius.
So let's jump over to Acts 11, 28 and have someone read that.
Acts 11 and verse 28.
them names, a guy that stood up and showed by the spirit that there was going to be a great family throughout all the world.
So there's the famine under Claudiath.
But what about the earthquakes that he talks about in verse 7?
Can anyone think of an earthquake that hit around the time of 60 to 70 AD, shook the world?
We still learn about it in history books today.
Vesuvius was one, yeah.
Mount Vesuvius catastrophic earthquake hit Pompeii in AD of 62 severely damaging the city killing many, people.
This foreshadowed its final destruction in AD 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted.
Vesuvius.
So here we have earthquakes.
Now let's take a little sidestep and let's look at Pompeii from the time period.
Let's look at the background of Pompeii.
It was located near modern day Naples in Italy.
Pompeii was a thriving Roman city.
It would have been a trade route for many things.
In AD 62 we have the mass of earthquakes struck, it's called widespread destruction, and rebuilding efforts.
Now if you have a city who is a network hub for delivering lots of goods in and out to different countries and an earthquake wrecks that
infrastructure, could that have something to do with famines?
Could that have something to do with political upheaval?
Of course it could.
You're talking about a major infrastructure being destroyed.
In AD 79, fast forwarding a little bit, Vesuvius erupted unexpectedly.
It buried Pompeii and the nearby uh Herk- I can never pronounce this word, Herkinalium in ash.
These disasters reflected unrest.
reflected natural instability in the region.
And this was all leading up to Jerusalem's fall.
This was stuff pre-Jerusalem's fall.
So let's look at verse 13.
It says that, shall endure until the end.
What is the end here, contextually?
If we look at the end, is he talking about the end, he will endure till the end of judgment?
No, of course not.
we're looking at the context and historic, then it would be to the end of the siege at Jerusalem when the armies were compassed about.
Verse 14, the gospel was preached in all the world.
This is the inhabited Roman world.
Paul says that this already happened by his times and we read about that in Colossians 1.23.
Let's have someone read Colossians 1.23.
Alright.
So we see this already happening.
So what's the turning point?
What does he mean about whenever he talks about the abomination of desolation?
Two very large words.
First off, what is an abomination?
Just the definition of abomination.
Something that shouldn't be, something messed up, broken.
Okay, what is desolation?
That's an easier one.
Destroyed, completely, Desolation is barren landscape, nothing left.
Completely and utterly destroyed.
All right, so let's look and see what the abomination of desolation is.
And we're gonna do that from Matthew 15 to 22.
Therefore,
When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, that's an important part, keep your finger on it, we're gonna come back to that.
Standing in the holy place, whoever reads, let him understand.
Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.
Don't turn around, don't grab anything, he's telling them.
Let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes, but woe unto those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days, and pray that your flight may not
be in winter or on the Sabbath.
We notice that he's not telling them of the exact time, but he's also saying, don't turn around, be ready to flee.
For then there will be great tribulation.
Such has not been seen since the beginning of the world until this time, nor shall ever be.
And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved.
But for the elect's sake, those days will be more shortened.
In verse 15, Jesus refers to Daniel, the abomination of desolation.
Let's take a look at Daniel chapter 9, verses 26 through 27.
We'll have someone read from there next.
Daniel 9, 26 through 27.
We're
After the sixty-two sevens, the anointed one will be cut off and will have nothing.
The people of the ruler will come and destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end will come like a flood.
War will continue until the end.
And desolations have been agreed.
He will confirm a covenant with many for one sep- in the middle of the sep- and he will put an end to sacrifices and offering.
And on the wing of-
he will set up an abomination that causes desolation until the end that is decreed is pulling out.
Alright, so the abomination of desolation was a signal of defilement and destruction, wasn't it?
Originally by Antiochus epiphanies, but now applied to Rome's actions as we read in Matthew.
Luke 21 and verse 20 clarifies the meaning.
Let's go ahead and get someone to read that.
Luke 21 and verse 20.
with
when is the desolation nigh?
When armies are surrounding Jerusalem?
Man, that doesn't sound like the end of the world, does it?
Sounds like a war.
All right, let's continue.
When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then ye shall know the desolation thereof is nigh.
Now we need to take a minute, we need to step back and we need to talk about some rulers of the time period.
We're gonna talk a little bit about Vespasian and a little bit about a man named Titus.
Vespasian was a Roman general sent by Nero to crush the Jewish revolt between AD 66 and AD 70, somewhere around that time.
He began a methodical campaign in Galilee in Judea, leaving his son Titus to finish the job.
He had started the campaign, but ultimately didn't finish it, so he left it to Titus.
In Nero died.
Vespasian returned to Rome and eventually became the known emperor.
Titus, now commanding, ended up besieging Jerusalem in 1870.
I wonder what surrounded the city when Titus commanded to attack Jerusalem.
Any guesses?
Armies, that's right.
Roman armies surrounded the city.
Did this fulfill Jesus's warning at the time?
Yes, of course it did.
They burned the temple, they utterly destroyed the city, and they enslaved or killed over one million Jews.
Tacitus, a Roman historian, and Josephus, a Jewish eyewitness, both confirmed the events.
So we have historical proof not only from Roman writings, but from eyewitness accounts and Roman historians.
Roman standards were planted on the Temple grounds after the attack.
Eagle banners with imperial emblems you'd see sitting on the flat earth that was destroyed in Jerusalem.
It's almost like one final blasphemous desecration of the grounds of the Temple.
But let's read on.
Let's go on to verse 16.
Someone read verse 16 of Matthew 24.
then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
Let them what?
Flee to the mountains.
Flee to the mountains?
Can we run from the final judgment on the end of the world by fleeing to the mountains?
No.
No one is going to escape this.
Let them in Judea flee.
I don't know about you, but this seems like a clear command with a very clear geographical scope, doesn't it?
You have the mountains and you have not the mountains.
Those who heeded Jesus's warning would escape the destruction.
So continuing on with Josephus, I know I'm bouncing back and forth here.
Titus Josephus, a Jewish priest, general and historian who lived during the first century.
He initially fought against the Romans, but later surrendered and cooperated with Vespasian and Titus.
This is someone who was there.
His work, The Jewish War, written in 8075, provides us with a detailed, and note this, first-hand account of Jerusalem's destruction.
He recorded the siege and starvation inside of the city.
He recorded the destruction of the temple.
And he even recorded that Christians fled to Pella before the siege began.
This would have been a city up in the mountains, likely due to Jesus' prophecy.
He called the event the most catastrophic destruction of a city in human history up to that point.
Now, can we take an eyewitness's account for it that what's written here is true?
We do, don't we?
We should.
Many people will argue the fact that
maybe his eyewitness testimony wasn't true or something of that nature, but how so readily are we uh willing to admit that the presidents signed the Declaration of Independence?
We have the one sheet of paper, right?
We have eyewitness accounts that it happened.
We're so ready to accept things like that, but then when it comes to Bible history, so many times people gloss over and say, well, that can't be right.
Next we're going look at the time frame, specifically the words, this generation that we read from verse 23 through 35.
So now we're going to read Matthew chapter 24, verses 23 through 25.
Then if anyone says to you, look, here's the Christ, or there, do not believe it.
For false Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
See, I have told you beforehand.
Therefore, if they say to you, look, he is in the desert, do not go out, or look, he's in the inner rooms, do not believe it.
For as the lightning comes from the sea from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of Son of Man be.
For wherever the carcass is, there the equals will be
together.
let me see, hold on, I've lost my place here.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be dark, darkened, and the moon will not give its light.
The stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory.
And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Now learn this parable from the fig tree.
When its branches already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near.
So also when you see all these things, know that it is near at the doors.
Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Verses 27 through verse 30 uses a very Old Testament apocalyptic language.
Now who here knows the definition of apocalyptic?
It's not talking about end of the world, Armageddon.
Apocalyptic would be a hidden language, something in code.
It's something that they could readily write down, pass around, and the Roman armies wouldn't be able to quite decipher it.
They'd go, what are they talking about?
The sun darken and the star falls, son of man coming.
These are different phrases that we read.
Let's compare those for just a moment to Isaiah chapter 13 and verse 10.
If someone would read that.
Isaiah 13 and verse 10.
Wow, so it's happened twice already, right?
The sun literally darkened, the stars fell, the sun a man come...
okay.
Let's try Ezekiel 32 and we'll read verses 7 through 8.
Ezekiel chapter 32, verses 7 and 8.
Ezekiel 32 7 through 8 When I snub you out I will cover the heavens and darken the stars I will cover the sun with clouds and the moon will not give its light All the shining lights
in the heavens I will darken over you I will bring darkness over your land declares the sovereign lord So three times, right?
Three times!
end has come.
Judgment day.
No, of course not.
This is symbolic.
This is symbolic talk for national judgment and God's providential visitation.
What about the phrase, coming of the Son of Man?
Here refers to Christ's coming in judgment as in Isaiah 19, one, the Lord rides upon a swift cloud.
But let's jump to verse 34 of Matthew 24.
Here's the key phrase, this generation shall not pass away.
Would this indicate a clear, very well defined first century fulfillment of the word?
Yeah, absolutely.
If that generation weren't to pass away until all that thing, do we have people living that are over a thousand years old today?
No, of course we don't.
Nobody lives that long.
He shows us that this happened in the first century.
It's been fulfilled.
A generation typically would be about 40 years during that time.
Jesus spoke around AD 30 to 33, and Jerusalem fell in AD 70.
It's about a generation.
If this were from the end of the world, people from that generation would absolutely have to be alive today, wouldn't they?
That's...
That's nipping it right in the bud That's putting a pin in it.
If people say that Matthew chapter 24 is about the end of judgment and the end of time and God's coming to judge us all, this one right here, put a pin in it.
This generation will not pass.
How old do you think people are?
It's common sense.
This is why interpretation matters.
This is why we need to know what we're reading, what we're studying, and to take a deep dive into these scriptures and really look at not only the biblical context, but also the
historical context as well.
Who was talking?
Who was he talking to?
When was it said?
What was the political and geopolitical areas at the time?
Premillennial doctrines twist Matthew chapter 24 to talk about some future, far-off seven-year tribulation.
They teach about the rise of an antichrist, but here we read of many antichrists, plural, right?
That would be anyone who is antichrist, against Christ.
It also talks about a rapture of a saint.
But Jesus told his believers in Judea to flee.
Does anyone else find that odd?
Where would you flee to at the final judgment day?
If this is supposed to be the end of the world, where are we supposed to go?
Can we run to the mountains and get away from it?
God will pick up 90 % of the population, whoever's not in the mountains, and leave the rest here to live on earth forever.
It's not how that works.
In the final judgment, there is absolutely nowhere you can run.
God is all powerful.
God is all knowing, isn't he?
And he's also omnipresent.
He's all present.
m
The destruction here involves a specific city, specific armies, and specific timing.
The abomination of desolation already occurred when Rome desecrated the temple.
The abomination of desolation is absolutely turning it over to where there was not one stone put upon the other.
In addition, this generation has long since passed.
No one from this time period of the first century is alive today.
And it's absolutely dishonest to stretch that into modern times, isn't it?
This chapter is about the end of the Jewish system, not the end of the planet, not the end of the world, not the end of the galaxy, not the end of the universe.
The final judgment is addressed clearly in Matthew chapter 25, which features several things that contrast with Matthew chapter 24.
In Matthew chapter 25, it's going to show no signs to flee from, a universal judgment scene,
and eternal consequences, not just the death of the body here on Earth.
Matthew chapter 24 verses 1 through 35 shows the faithfulness of Jesus's words, doesn't it?
Everything Christ said was faithful, but when he told them that this was going to happen before it happened, it happened exactly the way he said it would happen, didn't he?
So many times we have the adage, and I've heard it said many times, when God says something, that settles it, right?
That's the same thing when Christ says it.
It warns us that God keeps His promises.
He promises to protect us.
He promises to love us, so much so that he sent his son to die on a cross so that we can have remission of our sins.
He promises to give us a crown and a home in glory with him.
I have a mansion with many rooms.
If it were not so, I would tell you.
My kingdom is not of this world, he says.
He makes a lot of grand promises, and that's something that we can have hope in, something we don't have to be afraid of.
Yes.
And what Rome did, God's power and the wrath that is going to happen.
It's just a small glimpse shown in the instruction of Jerusalem.
Correct.
But another beautiful thing about that, what you're discussing right now is God is saving us from that wrath.
Yes, God is absolutely saving us from that wrath.
And I love that you jumped right into my next point, is because it also includes those of judgment.
He has promises of judgment, doesn't he?
He doesn't get to just stave off forever.
He always puts a time limit on these things, doesn't he?
Our God is long-suffering.
with us right now on this planet.
Didn't Christ say that He wills that none should perish, but that all should come unto Him for eternal life?
I'm paraphrasing, but of course He did.
But He does, just like Bohannon said.
It promises judgment and a terrifying judgment.
We read earlier the woes
Woe to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing babies in those days.
Can you imagine being pregnant with a child and not fleeing to the mountains like you were supposed to and incurring the wrath of the Roman army?
Tearing down your city and the temple where you worship every stone?
Look around the building here.
This isn't a super grand building at all.
But what if an army surrounded it, kept us from our food and our water, we couldn't leave?
and then came in and broke it down to the very foundation, not a single stone on top of one another, taking some of us as slaves and killing others.
It's kind of hard to sit here and think about it in terms of us, but that's exactly what happened to the people in Jerusalem.
Sometimes it's hard for us to put ourselves in their shoes.
God promises, and God always keeps His promises, including those of judgment.
Just as Jerusalem faced judgment, that also means that we too must prepare for our own eternal accountability.
Let's be sure not to misinterpret scripture out of fear of confusion.
I think we should always study to show ourselves approved.
A workman needeth not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth that is rightly measuring ourselves up against what God has written.
But we need to teach with truth and clarity.
And I hope that going through as much of Matthew chapter 24 as we've done this evening has helped with that.
Does anyone have any other uh questions, comments, concerns, philosophical meanderings?
All right.
Then I know it's a little early, but we'll go ahead and dismiss and get ready for the devotional.